In many corporate cultures, valuing work-life balance and integrating personal life with working is seen as antithetical to job performance. Employees who have control over where, when and how they work are seen as unproductive. Flexibility is perceived as an entitlement, not as a tool for productivity.

This is not just an issue for those who deal with childcare or elder care. Millenials, Gen-Xers and Boomers, men and women, returning veterans and disabled employees: Studies find that all employees value some control over managing personal and working time.

In addition, just because people are in the office doesn’t mean they are necessarily productive.

My research on boundary management styles shows individuals and company cultures have different engagement styles for managing work and personal life communications. Some of us are “integrators” who can read take text messages from family, follow the news, and update our Facebook pages while still getting our job done well. Some of us work better at 5 a.m. or late at night. Other workers are “separators”: They need time to focus and detach from work to concentrate. They also need some time off on weekends or evenings to recover from job stress.

Research shows that teleworking can help firms meet business objectives if the organization’s management sees it as a tool to improve performance, rather than a barrier to performance.

This means adapting metrics to focus on results, and linking flexible schedules to talent management and job demands. Management has to take time to coach employees, to be clear on goals, and have the courage to get rid of the bottom 10% of workers and abusers of a flexible system. Asking employees to be “flexible on flexibility” — setting core hours for meetings, coming into the office for group brainstorms or setting specific hours for conference calls — are helpful approaches.

So telework is not the cause of Yahoos’ problems. Employees commit to an organization because of its positive culture, and a feeling they are valued as whole people, not because they are ordered to sit at their desk. Abolishing telework is like cancelling the prom because someone spiked the punchbowl. It is not going to get Yahoo out of its doldrums in the long term. It may even result in an exodus, as talent leaves for employers who do not see work- life flexibility as being at war with job performance.

Ellen Ernst Kossek is a co- author of “CEO of Me: Creating a Life that Works in the Flexible Job Age” and the Basil S. Turner Distinguished Professor of Management at Purdue University’s Krannert School of Management. She is also a member of the Work Family Health Network and the President of the Work-Family Researchers Network.

Comments (5 of 19)

If Yahoo is out there to make money and improve stock performance then this move makes no sense. Instead of announcing a move designed to show improvement and added competitive-ism they have announced that their management team is ill equipped to effectively manage a remote workforce, while also saying they are unfriendly to those who want to work from home. Attack the cause, not the symptom.

11:30 am March 2, 2013

Dean Lane wrote :

I was with AT&T when the original telecommuting study was conducted and covered everything from equipment to who is liable if a person is working from home. The article misses the entire point of telecommuting. It is not a perk, it is not designed to help avoid stress. It is a productivity and cost saving item. And, oh by the way, in most companies the wrong people are telecommuting.

Those people who have measureable work should be allowed to telecommute. Clerks who enter data are a perfect example - we have enough data to know what quantity of data should be entered in a work day and with what level of accuracy. Someone who is completing a proposal or presentation on a given day may be a candidate for telecommuting for a day, two at the most.

Positions that require interaction with others are not as viable candidates for telecommuting. Communication is difficult enough when both parties are in the same office building. I'm not suggesting that it can't be done, but rather pointing out the heightened level of difficulty in working remotely. Try gathering business requirements remotely and let me know how that works out..

I believe that before a firm allows anyone to telecommute, they must ask: What is the purpose of telecommuting at our firm? Why are we doing this?

10:45 pm March 1, 2013

Traditional Worker wrote :

Guess in certain fields, telecommuting is a given.
Working from a traditional business field, most workers like self don't have that LUXURY afforded to tech-related workers.
Ask if we care? NOPE!
Do we empathize? Heck NO!
TOO many benefits afforded to tech-related workers, who are NOT the only workers that have worked long hours!
Boo hoo, no more telecommuting!
You can NO sympathy from the rest of us workers that have to go to work literally at the company's office.

11:32 am February 28, 2013

NEGirl wrote :

Yahoo made a strategic business decision, and we have no idea what went into it. It could be anything from the in-house staff feeling as though the work from home staff weren't pulling their weight (Harvard Business Review has a post up about this: worker productivity in the office went down in a study when some were permitted to work from home. The work from home staff was just as productive as they had been in the office, it was those who remained in the office whose performance declined. Why? Because they *perceived* the work from home staff wasn't working as hard. Which was demonstrably false.)

It could be the "cheap layoff that isn't a layoff" idea. It could be that she really does think that serendipity at the water cooler is a business model. And it could just be that since she was at Google, and this is how Google does it, she thinks it will transform Yahoo. Whatever the case, it is her decision. If the company manages a turnaround, she'll be seen as brilliant. If it continues to circle downward, she'll get the blame.

Anonymous is correct, companies exist to make money. And smart companies look closely at what goes into that--part of which is a company of satisfied employees. This move affects a small portion of her workers (many of whom are customer service reps, and I'm dubious about the collaborative value they will add, but I suppose we'll see). There's also the appearance of hypocrisy in her building of a nursery in her office to accommodate her version of a flexible workplace--instead of working from home, she has her home brought into work.

My work is split between in-office and remote, and June has it about right: I put in way more hours on work from home days. My deliverables are very clear, and it would be apparent in less than 24 hours if I weren't holding up my end of the bargain. In return for this flexibility, my employer gets a very loyal employee willing to put in extra hours. It works for both of us, and thankfully, that is recognized.

8:40 am February 28, 2013

Anonymous wrote :

I know this isn't want a lot of people like to hear, however companies exist to make money not to support the welfare and lifestyle choices of their employees.

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